


Coffee Mates

by Scrunchles



Series: Christmas 2017 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, alternate universe - author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: Jamison is the only one working at the coffee shop all of Christmas Day.  There's one customer who stays the whole time.  His voice rumbles through Jamie’s very core.  It’s deep and he speaks lowly as if he’s trying to compensate for how bass his voice is.  Jamie is probably in love.The customer also seems to really like Jamie's special lattes and pigs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Woden's Skadi as well as the rest of my patrons for all their wonderful support.
> 
> This is a fic I wrote for my 30 days of Christmas drabbles. The prompt for this chapter was:
> 
> Character A is stuck working in coffee shop on Christmas Day and Character B is the lonely soul spending their whole day there.

Everyone joked about Jamie drawing the short stick, but he feels like he’s the luckiest cunt of them all.  Working holidays gets him double time, and since no one else wants to work on the holiest of holidays, Jamie is getting four days of pay in one day. Two shifts, twice the rate and Jamie isn’t even sure what he’s going to use the money for.  Maybe a new processor he can integrate into his prosthesis; switch out the shitty factory piece it came with.

People want coffee on Christmas.  A lot of people.  Luckily, Jamie has making it down to a science. He’s good at patterns, and that’s all orders are.  A new order, a new cup is put in the queue.  A new pattern is added to the end of the sequence.

Espresso, syrup, milk, whip; espresso, water, an inch of cream; light roast, heavy cream, syrup; dark roast, two pumps of vanilla and a stick of peppermint.

It slows down like hitting a brick wall once ten o’clock rolls around, and Jamie works on cleaning up the spills he’s made so he’ll be less likely to break his neck.  Once he’s done, he prepacks espresso for any extra coffee rushes he might have, though he’s expecting it to be dead until four.

Once he’s gotten the pit cleaned up, he turns his attention to the customer area and realizes he’s not alone.  A large man is sitting in the corner typing on a laptop.  He peers at the man’s coffee mug and doesn’t remember making coffee for him.  Might have brought his own in.

He walks over and puts on his best customer smile.  “Fancy a top off?” He asks.

The man doesn’t look up, just picks his coffee cup up, tosses back whatever is left in it, then moves it toward Jamie, his other hand never stopping on the keys.

“Uh… right… have a preference?” Jamie asks, his smile dropping to half wattage.

“Whatever you like to make.”  His voice rumbles through Jamie’s very core.  It’s deep and the customer speaks lowly as if he’s trying to compensate for how bass his voice is.

Jamie feels his chest flutter and this time a genuine grin is stretched across his face, not that the man will spare the time to look up, it seems.

“Got any allergies?”  Jamie asks, leaning on the back of the other chair pushed up against the table, hoping to get him to keep talking.

“No.”

Fuck.  Well.  He would love to hear that voice more, but this was just going to have to be good enough.

Jamie takes the cup and retreats back to the pit, whistling as he goes.  

He puts a little more spin on things now that he has the time, and maybe the cute stranger will watch him from afar as he sways his hips to a jaunty tune in his head or when he twirls the espresso filter as a showy way to make sure that it’s properly packed.

“Got any drawing requests?” He asks, raising his voice over the whine of the espresso machine and the milk steamer.

“Pig,” the man says in reply.  He doesn’t have to raise his voice for Jaime to hear him.  His low rumble fills the entire shop, even over the espresso machine.

Jamie feels electrified as he adds a dash of homemade chili powder to the latte and then gives it all a stir with a stick of peppermint candy.  He makes a background of dark chocolate syrup in a spiral on the top, then uses a toothpick to tug lines from it until there’s a fat little piggy with tiny hooves running across the drink.

Jamie grins and carefully takes the cup back to the man, making sure to use his prosthesis.  However slow it is to reacting, it’s gyroscopically balanced.

Jamie puts the latte down carefully on the table and then sits in the chair across from the customer, eager to see his reaction.

The latte is a special of his, something he came  up with for Christmas and the customers love it.  There’s the initial bite of the peppermint, then a zip as the chili pepper lights up one’s tongue and makes the espresso and chocolate sweeter by comparison.

The man glances up at Jamie and grunts a “thanks,” then goes back to his laptop.  When Jamie doesn’t leave, he looks at the espresso, as if it might be a clue to why Jamie was still around.  He stares at it, then the corners of his frown slowly turn up into a smile.

Jamie feels his heart melt.

“Cute,” the man says.

“Let— Uh… let me know how you find it,” Jamie says, suddenly aware that he has to get away from the man with the laptop or he might fucking do something indecent, like touch their feet together or reach up to wipe chocolate from the customer’s top lip with his thumb like some dumb romance story.

He hurries back to the pit and tidies up again, then goes back to cleaning around the front of the cafe.

When he glances at the customer, he sees the peppermint stick in his mouth and smiles.  It’s a fucking sweet picture for a big, strong silent type to be eating a stick of candy.  He’s tempted to sneak a pic, but something about the man makes him feel like he’s always watching Jamie, even when his eyes are on his laptop screen.

Jamie isn’t sure if he has actually stopped typing since Jamie first noticed him.

Just as he’s finishing up deep cleaning the window ledges, he notices the customer’s cup is pushed away.  He glances at his watch.  The man has been here for at least three hours, it’s almost one in the afternoon.

“Want a refill?” Jamie asks as he walks over. 

The man grunts and keeps typing.

“Got uh… deadlines?” Jamie asks awkwardly.

The man nods once.

“Well I’m about to make a couple hot sandwiches… hate eating alone.  Think you can swing a break?  On the house for a—“ he nearly complements him, nearly gets out the phrase  _ for a handsome bloke like you,  _ but he can’t do it.  He’s too chicken shit.  “A nice scholarly type.”  Jamie pastes on the brightest smile he has, but he’s kicking himself on the inside.  He wants to explode right there on the spot.

The man’s hands halt, and he looks up at Jamie, like he’s considering the offer.

“Sure,” he says, typing  one more sentence and then closing his laptop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter was:
> 
> I’m a barista and you keep making weird faces when you drink the “Christmas cheer in a cup” coffee I make, why do you keep ordering it?

His name is Mako.

He’s a writer.

Jamie claims he loves books.

Jamie has not read a book since he was stuck in the hospital with his arm and leg.  Or… rather, without.

Despite that, he manages to combine bullshitting and some sneaky Wikipedia into a decent enough series of coherent sentences that Mako’s skeptical look goes away.  

It’s good enough that he asks for another of Jamie’s special coffees and actually watches him be a fancy piece of shit when he makes it.  He doesn’t specify which design he wants, but Jamie has a special piggy in mind for him.

“The key is not to add too much chili powder, but still just enough that it really zaps the tongue,” Jamie says, tossing a pinch of chili powder in with a bit of flare, “ _ bam _ !  Y’know?”

“Uh-huh,” Mako has a weird look on his face, similar to the look he had made when he tasted the fancy cheese on the sandwiches Jamie made them.

“What? Don’t like monopeds?” Jamie asks, proud that he remembered the name for it.  Maybe.

“You mean onomatopoeia?” Mako asks.

Jamie doesn’t know if he wants to melt from embarrassment or how hot Mako’s voice is.  He’s kind of come out of his writing shell, but he’s nowhere near as talkative as Jamie, and at this rate, when he leaves, Jamie is going to be aching to hear his voice again.

“Probably,” Jamie says, snapping his flesh fingers and pointing at Mako with a smile as he stirs in the peppermint stick and then begins to draw.  This time, he makes a really stylized pig face.

Mako smiles a little when he sees the drawing, and Jamie wants to make him ten more, whether Mako will drink them or not.

“So, uh… think we were talking about your deadline, huh?”  Jamie says, sliding into the chair across from Mako again and propping his chin on his fists.

“You were,” Mako says, but he looks amused, so Jamie just grins in response.

“Well, one of us has to!” Jamie says.  He’s not sure if he’s having a heart attack or if he’s just in love.

Mako takes a careful sip of his coffee.

Jamie is too wrapped up in watching Mako drink—how he’s trying to preserve the pig on top—to miss the expression he makes afterward.

“What’s with the face?” Jamie asks, his grin slipping into a frown.  He goes back over the ingredients he used.  The pattern.  

Did he miss something?

Mako looks like he’s measuring up Jamie.  “... I don’t like spice,” he finally admits.

Jamie’s brows drop and he sits up straight.  “What?!”

“It’s uh…. is it the weird?”  Mako asks, setting the cup down and picking the peppermint stick out.

“Of course not!” Jamie shakes his head and leans forward again, snagging the cup and pulling it toward him to take a sip as Mako sucks on the peppermint.

“You going to wash that before you make me a good coffee?” Mako asks.

Jamie spits coffee across the table.  He quickly sets the cup down and titters for a few minutes.  His entire body is hot. He knows he’s blushing, but Mako has gone from looking uncomfortable about not liking spicy things to smirking at Jamie's embarrassment. 

The smirk is worth feeling like he should be imploding or catching fire.

“I was just… making sure it was made right,” Jamie says, then realizes that there’s coffee everywhere.

“Fuck, your laptop! Let me… uh…” He pulls the towel out of his apron and tries to find a clean spot on it, but Mako uses his sweater sleeve before Jamie can wipe it off.

“No worries,” Mako tells him.  “Think acting mad would just kill you at this point.”

Jamie barely resists hiding his face in his towel.  “What… how do you  _ really _ take your coffee?” Jamie asks.

“It’s easier to say I take coffee with my cream and sugar,” Mako replies.  “Or cocoa.”

Jamie laughs too loud and then quickly grabs the cup and stands.  “I’ll make you something else,” he says quickly before rushing off to hide in the pit.

It takes washing Mako’s cup and steaming the milk for his cocoa to get Jamie calmed back down.

“So, uh… If you don’t like spicy, why didn’t you say anything?  Could have made you something earlier,” Jamie says, using a spoon to keep the foam out of Mako’s cup.

“I like the pigs,” Mako says.

Jamie slowly stops pumping chocolate into the milk and a grin spreads across his face.  He stirs the chocolate and milk together, then grabs a stick of peppermint and the whip.  

He plops the peppermint stick in before filling half of the last inch of the cup with whip cream.  He builds a little piggy body with its front legs on the edge, making the pig head around the peppermint and leaving the end of it as the nose.  He uses dark chocolate to draw eyes and hooves, then draws a cute little curly tail on the butt of the piggy.  Mako is going to love this.

Jamie carefully picks the drink up, holding his hand in front of the piggy surprise as he carries it over to Mako.

“Alright, if you thought those pigs were cute, check out this one,” Jamie says.  He carefully sets the drink down and then turns the cocoa around so that the peppermint nose faces Mako.  “Ta-dah!”

Mako is staring at the whip cream piggy with that stone cold face he’d had when he first came in.

Jamie feels his excitement slowly bleed out.  Then it surges back when Mako suddenly grabs the front of his apron and drags him closer.

Jamie braces his hand on the table and the piggy dances in the cup.  It breaks apart, but Mako’s attention is on Jamie and Jamie is just trying to distract himself from the fact that the man he was head over heels for is probably about to kill him. Maybe he’s  actually mad  about the coffee on the laptop.

“I want to kiss you,” Mako says, when Jamie doesn’t look him in the eye.

Jamie’s eyes snap from looking anywhere else to looking Mako in his beautiful brown eyes.

“You want to wot mate?”

Mako lets Jamie go, but he doesn’t pull back.  “Kiss you,” Mako says, dropping his hand to his own thigh and raising a brow as if asking for permission.

“ _ Please _ ,” is right on the tip of Jamie’s tongue, but the door chimes.

It’s four o’clock.  Evening rush.

Jamie leans in to peck Mako’s nose and gives his shoulder a pat.  “Hold that thought,” Jamie says, his heart breaking as he turns away from Mako and puts on his customer facade.  “Welcome to the Koala Bean, what can I make for you today?”

**Author's Note:**

> I have never worked at a coffee shop so... please don't call me out on that.


End file.
